The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-12-17

muir or the Infinite seattle sea that
hath no shore but God. In My Faith
ers house are many mansions"
That life in the Fathers house may
be a state of endless variety, it must
possess a faculty of eternal progress.
No good-except the absolute Good it
self-can ever give up growing. The
end of progress would be the end of
glory. The thought of this soaring
upward for ever may be overburdening
to our mind now, but that is only be-
cause of the material touch and relation
which enfeeble the soul. We are so
much under the government of the
time-spirit, that we are afraid of eter-
nifty. But one day we shall love eter-
nity-love it as the angels love the
light-passionately, tenderly, serenely,
undyingly.
Heaven is the home of eternal prog
ress, but it can have no work left I'M
finished. 1t can not be progress from
bad to good, but progress from good
to better. From glory to glory-from
mansion to mansion-but no mansion
can be poorly built. The centuries of
time are covered with sad fragments
of human endeavor; harps of song
whose strings were snapped asunder by
the rude hand of death-tender-h heart
ed prayers whose wings were broken in
the stormy night against the lighted
windows of heaven-large-m minded re-
forms wrecked in sight of the desired
haven-noble-souled enterprises lost OIL
Alpine SUBMITS and buried in the
drifted snow of ages-fragments every
where of the good, the true, the divine
When Mendelssohn was spending his
last summer under the pine of In
terlaken, he could not help fretting with
a sense of the near approach of death.
The man who had given his first COM
position to the world at the age of
thirteen, and kept on giving year after
year, had yet much more to give at
thirty But what is the use of
planning? 1 shall not live" And in
November he fell asleep, leaving be-
hind the fragments OF his Cristus''
and his " Loreli."
"What is the use of planning?"
Child of heaven, keep on planningl
God does not mean to deprive thee of
what is dearest to thy soul. He only
means to take thee to larger room
that thou mayest do it better
Into the Silent Land
To you, We boundless regions
Of all perfectionl Tender Neutrality-suspicious.
OF beauteous souls The Futures pledge and
Band!
Who in life's battle firm doth stand,
Shall bear Hopes tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land
" Beauteous souls'' have no need to
fear that their Father will take from
them "their tender blossoms" Heav-
en- will be large enough for every one to
have his own. "In My Fathers
house are many mansions"
81 go to prepare place for you" That
morning two Of the disciples had come
into the city to prepare place for him.
They had done their best. But they
had been unable to keep Judas out of
the room, and to keep the sorrow of
death away from their Saviour's soul.
But when he has prepared the many
mansions for the beloved ones of God,
there will be no fear of their meeting a
traitors face forever and ever. The
Fathers house is very large, but there
is no room in it for sorrow. The City
Beautiful has twelve gates, but not one
of them opens into the garden of Geth
semane.
So the eternal progress of the soul
will have in it neither struggle nor
strife. Aspirations which are never
baffled, peace which is never be-
trayed, joy which is never disturbed
these are parts of the perfect whole.
No stress, no strain; only the peaceful
Towering Of sinless natures.
Home, sweet home The door is
never shut, and no child ever leaves.